 Mae'r ddeallu am y cyffredinol yn y Llyfrgellти Gaelol, Mae'r reoedd yn ddweud hwnnw. Mae'n fawr mewn gweithio'r ddiwedd, er這些n gael y diau ac ganuniaethog. Gweithio'r taliaeth i'n gyffredinol. Mae'n gwheilio ddweud hwnnw. A dweud hefyd yn gwheilio ac yn y braddyn. Rwy'n cofnodd armellaw y ddweud â hynny sulydydd ynglyn â risg. Mae hwnnw yn y chweilio liwr ystyried bod y gweithio'n gweithio'n ei wneud, Byw'r gweithio here in the chamber and by video conference, you are deemed to have consented to being filmed and to the use of images and sound recordings for a webcast and archived recording. May I ask those of you joining us remotely to ensure that the camera and microphone remain off unless they are addressing the committee. For those of us present in the room, please ensure your microphone is close to you and speak clearly when addressing the room. Item number one on our agenda today is Apologies. Lawrence, are there any apologies for absence, please? Thank you very much, Chair. No apologies for absence received today. Thank you. Item number two, declarations of interest. Do any members have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on the agenda? If I just can remind you, if an interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please would you raise it at that point. So now we move on to the minutes of the previous meeting. Do members have any suggested amendments relating to the accuracy of the minutes for the meeting held on the 9th of November 2023? Therefore, I move approval of these minutes as a true and accurate record. The committee therefore agrees the approval of the minutes of the meeting of the 9th of November 2023 as a true and accurate record by affirmation. I'll sign those at the end. Thank you. Item number four, public questions. There have been no questions from members of the public accepted for this meeting. So now we move on to item number five on the agenda, and this relates to the update on the four day week trial. Please can I invite Anna Ainsworth to present this report? Thank you very much, Chair. Just before I present this report, I would just like to draw members' attention to a minor typo that we just need to clarify. This is in the recommendations in the report under item F. In there we talk about, it's the second line from the end, up until the end of March 2023, and information about the ongoing effectiveness. That should be March 2024. Just for clarity for the committee, and apologies for that. We are very close with ourselves for not recognising that amendment. Excuse me, and would you mind just bringing the microphone a little bit closer to you? Thank you. Is that better? That's a lot better. Thank you. So just with regards to the report itself, so just a reminder for members, what have we done so far? So in January 2023 we started a desk based trial, and members will remember we did a three month trial at that point, and then it was agreed that we would continue with a desk based trial for a year, and that year will end in March 2024. In September 2023 we started the Waste Trial. The purpose of the trials was to help us attract and keep talented colleagues in what is an incredibly competitive local employment market. We know that there are hard to fill jobs in local authorities across the country, but we also know that in South Cambridgeshire, and partly linked to cost of living, we have some particular challenges with regards to recruitment. We also wanted to improve our services by filling vacant posts permanently rather than relying on expensive agency staff. Linked to that we wanted to reduce costs, and we also wanted to support the health and wellbeing of our colleagues, which we know helps us deliver good services. How have the trials gone? So performance in terms of our KPIs have been maintained, and in some cases they were improved. We had a very smooth waste round reorganisation, and I must continue to give credit to my colleagues, to BODY and the team, and those colleagues who helped with the reorganisation of those rounds. Anyone who's been involved in that type of piece of work will know it is incredibly complicated, and there's so many opportunities for things to not go quite right, and the fact that that has gone as smooth as it has, all credit to my colleagues for that. We have attracted people to posts that were previously hard to fill, and we have reduced agency costs. Just with regards to the recommendations in the report, as you can see from the recommendations, we want to undertake a consultation on the four-day week. We need to do that after we understand whether there are any financial implications with regards to a four-day week. That was mentioned within the local government financial settlement consultation, and we need to put some more information on that before we can do a meaningful consultation. Once we have that information, we will be able to complete that consultation. We want to ask Cabinet ultimately, and for any comments today from committee, to continue with the four-day week waste collection rounds and method of working. We want to collect more data. That trial obviously hasn't been running as long as a despase trial, and we would like to get more information and more data from continuing that particular trial. As part of that, we want to harmonise the working hours of despase staff and colleagues in our waste services and move to everyone working a 32-hour week. We also want to continue with the current working practices of despase staff in line with the current four-day working week to keep that going until such time, along with the waste trial, as we have further data information and consultation so that members can make an ultimate decision. We want to come back to this committee and also to Cabinet and full council within South Cambridgeshire and also go to a committee at the city with more information in July when we are able to have analysed the data from the despase trial, continue to collect data from the waste trial and be able to feed back to members at that point what that information is telling us about both trials. Thank you. Thank you, Ann. Just to remind members, it's our role here to review the report and to make comment on the report. Members, do we have any questions, any comments? Yes, Councillor Mark Howe. Thank you, Chairman. I'm just logging in. I've just been logged out, so I'm just bare with me. I want to... Sorry. Paragraph 10 under the recommendations, I think this is on page 12, and I specifically want to ask a question about D, subsection D. Could you just expand upon that from my own knowledge, please? I have several other questions as well, Chairman. Page 12, paragraph D. Does somebody go on, sir? Sorry, I just want to... This is the paragraph on page 12, sorry, paragraph D. Cabinet approves for all colleagues working a four-day week. The one to do with the hours being harmonised. Can we just check that? Sorry, Chairman. I'll also look at the holidays, yes. The holidays as well. Can that come to you, Jeff? Yes, indeed, the holidays will be apportioned based upon the new breakdown, so that they'll be based on people working 32 hours rather than 37. Yes, Councillor Howe. So somebody gets a 20-days holiday per year, plus they're eight statutory days. Eight statutory days obviously remain, I'm assuming, but the... No. No, what happens is that annual leave is apportioned, so reduced by the percentage of hours they're not working. Oh, sorry, yes. Yes, annual leave is apportioned, so it'll be reduced based upon the reduced number of working hours. And then rather than getting statutory days, if you're talking about bank holidays, for example, no, they don't get that. Instead, they get, for someone who works full-time, they get that one-day or that non-working day every week. So if, for example, somebody normally has a non-working day on a Friday, but there's a bank holiday that Monday, bank holiday becomes their non-working day instead. So that week they will work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So they don't get specific bank holidays in addition to their annual leave. Can I just come back to the actual holidays themselves? So if somebody is on a 20-days holiday, and I'm just using that as an example, what would that go down to, please? And I appreciate these hours, but, you know... Well, I'm going to take the easy option, if that's all right, and assume somebody normally gets 10 days on a day and that there was a 20% reduction. What that would mean is they'd get 8 days on a day instead of 10 days. It's obviously because they're moving to 32 hours and it's a bit more complicated. I'm not going to try and do that maths in my head. I can still have one if that's all right. That's fine, that's fine. Okay, thank you. Do you have another...? Are you okay for me to come back to you? I'm mindful that other members might ask the same question that you might be asking as well. Councillor Richard Stonewell. Chair, thank you. I've got several things that I'd like to talk about, but if I could take them one by one, maybe that would be okay. So the first is really a comment and a reflection. So I think when I started work in 1975, when I was first salaried, I was working 37.5 hours a week. I was just reflecting on the fact that just pre-First World War, it was quite typical for manual and clerical workers to be working 66 hours a week. And of course that was pre-I.T. And the systems then were different and concerns were different. But in those 60 years, up to 1975, we saw almost a 50% reduction in the working week. And since 1975 to today, we've seen nothing, zero. And yet in that time, we've had several revolutions, not least of which is the digital revolution, which has made information available. Working practices can change. And I think the exercise that we've been going through as South Cambridge District Council is illustrative of some of the potential that's been kind of locked away all of those years and that is now emerged. But I just want to say and my first comment is that the settling on 32 hours is, I think, an intriguing outcome of, if you will, learning by doing. So our colleagues have done a tremendous job getting the desk-based trial to work, getting the waste trial to work. We should say that waste trial has involved some very sophisticated processes to re-optimize the waste collection routes. But actually running as a kind of, if you will, ribbon through all of this has been the kind of things that IT and computing makes possible. So we've converged at something that's very satisfactory. It's much less than my 37 and a half. Well, it's less than 37 and a half hours a week. But at 86.5% of the old working week, it's kind of sensible. It's settled at a sensible value. And I have to commend the council on kind of doing all this stuff and coming up with working hours, which not only achieves the objective of a four-day week, but actually has, in a sense, encompassed the entire operation of the council. So great stuff. And I just say this is a very significant step forward. We are realizing some of the productivity gains that have been hidden and untapped. And I'm pleased that South Cams is an example of this stuff. So, yeah, a comment, really. And I hope I've touched on some of the main points. And thank you for that. It almost sort of feels maybe it's organic the way it's happened. Did you want to have a question that you wanted to ask? Just a comment. Chair, thank you. No, I'm good at a question just yet. It's coming. It's coming, thanks. Councils, you need a hand, Reg. So I have a comment and a question. Is that okay? That's fine. I'll start with the question. Do you, bin men, who, prior to this trial, who used to work bank holidays, get on social welfare? Are they losing out? Okay, can I refer to my colleague, Bode, to answer that question if that's okay, Bode? Thank you, Jeff. Sorry, I didn't quite understand the question. Please, could you repeat it? Okay, so bank holiday, working, for example, Sunday working, is classified as unsocial hours? By changing the router so they don't work a bank holiday, are they losing out on their unsocial hours? Or did you not pay it in the first place? No, we didn't pay for unsocial hours in the past. No, not as far as I'm aware. We didn't pay for unsocial hours working in the past. No, so we haven't changed anything in that respect. Okay. No. Could I just ask, my understanding of what you're saying, Bode, is that we didn't actually ask them to work unsocial hours. That's why they weren't paid for unsocial hours. Yes, yes. So drivers and loaders didn't typically work on weekends. It was an exception. So in the past, if there was a bank holiday, and they then had to work on a weekend to catch up, then they would pay it over time for that. But that was the exception rather than the norm. So they didn't ordinarily work on social hours as matter of routine. Thank you. And you had a question. I have a comment. A comment, thank you. Okay, so in 1980 Margaret Thatcher wouldn't pay nurses any more money. So our hours were reduced to 37.5 from 40. So this is not nothing new. What is good to see is that this is being looked into. Because when we had our hours reduced, there was no such looking into what effect it had. It was not a trial. You don't get more money, you just get less hours. And so I am so glad to see that this is being done in this way. I think it's a more responsible way of doing it, because I know for a fact that our agency is increased at that time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Did you want to come? Yes. I can't so mark how you have some more questions. Thank you Chairman. Chairman, I'm going to refer to paragraph 55 on page 18, but it's a general question as well. With regards to waste collection, the way I see it is that now all 100% of the actions that have to be taken are done over the four days instead of the five days. So that to me means that a higher work ratio is taking place. I am concerned that the amount of stress that's been put on the bodies of those collectors, especially since we've added an extra 20% over them four days. Also seen on paragraph 55, and what will happen by April 2025, I wonder at all if that's going to be possible. Thank you for your question. Is it okay, Bode, to reply to that? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Just taking the first question. Part of the reason we settled that 32 hours was to find the optimum balance. So we looked at a variety of options, 32, 34, four days over five, five days over four. And the outputs we are getting so far shows that there is absolutely no detrimental effect on the well-being of our crews. If anything, they actually have improved in terms of well-being. One of the reasons we're asking for the trial to be extended is that we have some sickness data now for the last three months that's showing a positive impact. We're just going through the winter months now. We want to continue to monitor that and see what the impact is also. Our workload is seasonal. So in the winter, there's a reduced workload for the people that connect with green beans. But all the evidence so far is that there's a very noticeable positive impact on their well-being. So the extra few miles they're working every day is more than compensated for by the additional audio rest that they have. And that's evidence in the sickness levels we have seen. But we will present that in more detail in the next few months. In terms of the government legislation on food waste, when we do begin that, that will not be the same cruise. It will be a different set of people. We cannot use the same people now to collect food waste separately. But what it means is that we have a lot more operational flexibility. So at the moment for the domestic waste cruise, we work Tuesday to Friday. For the commercial waste cruise, they work Monday to Thursday and Tuesday to Friday because restaurants and businesses have collections seven days a week. Because we have the flexibility on the Monday and Friday, we will then have a bit more control over which days are the most optimum for us to collect food waste. So that's the benefit of having that flexibility. But it will not be the same people. We need a competitive defensive of people, operational cruise to collect food waste when we begin to do that collection. If you mind, Chairman, just a small comment. I want to thank you for that very comprehensive reply. I appreciate that. I think my concern is a more long-term effect on people's bodies physically as opposed to the short-term mental health and well-being. I do have great concern there of the long-term physicality. I'll find my next question if you go to somebody else. Thank you for that. I'm mindful that the trial has been going for a short time. So we will get more evidence as we go through the trial and the feedback. I just wanted to say that one of the things that I found interesting was the fact that the same crews are doing the household waste is also doing recycling and how that speeded up the knowledge of the rounds and seem to be lots of learning as Councillor Richardson said that we can embrace here. So thank you. I'll come back to you, Councillor Richardson. Chair, thank you. I'm just referring now to page 40 in paragraphs 42, 43 which concerns the analysis of data that will take place following the year of the trial or following, in a sense, a concluding moment. I do have a question Chair that maybe I could lead off with. But I don't want to come back and broaden it out. But the specific one is waste trial should really run through an entire year to cover the seasonal aspects that would make any subset of 12 months would introduce some bias. I'm wondering if that is in the plan that is possible that a full 12 months of the waste trial can proceed. So maybe I should pause there and could you come back to me and... Certainly, in terms of speaking the answer because it's for you Bode in terms of the trial, waste trial and the 12 months cycle. I think that will be our preference as well, yes. Absolutely. I think for those seasonal aspects that I mentioned and as Councillor Mark how the wear and tear and how we get that information is that satisfactory? That's great, thank you Chair. So I just want to come on to data and analysis and we've talked a lot about data in this context for a lot of different reasons but I just wanted to commend the appointment and this is the appointment or more kind of association with Professor Brendan Burchell and his team at the Department of Sociology at the University. First of all, I welcome it. Professor Burchell is an academic with a very substantial and well-deserved reputation and I think adds value to the project in a big way. I did want to ask a couple of things. First of all, is there a specification of the kind of analysis that Professor Burchell and his team will do? And I know we've talked about the government is taking a lot of data from us and we as yet don't know the kind of things that the government statisticians are doing but can we to some extent preempt that by choosing appropriate analysis paths and my concluding question for this set could we meet Professor Burchell as a committee at some point and just get to know a little bit. Thank you. Do you want to answer that or will that go to Ann? Thank you. Yes, and thank you for that question. I'll come to the last question but I've seen a reason why not and very happy to extend that invitation to the professor to come and meet with committee following this. We're in discussions at the moment about exactly how that data is about specification. Exactly how that data will be analysed and assessed. I can't give you an outline of the specification as we sit here today that's still being talked through. Obviously one of the things that we are very mindful of is that we have done previous data analysis in terms of the first three months trial and we've got to make sure that we have that comparable information and data so that you can as members you can see the full length of the year trial as well alongside that three month trial that was previous so we do need to think very carefully about making sure that that data makes sense to everybody looking at it in line with what we've been doing previously. With regards to the D-LOOK data that is an excellent question I don't know if we can pre-empt what D-LOOK may choose to do with the data that we've been supplying to them. As mentioned we don't have any information back from D-LOOK at the moment in terms of any analysis that they've undertaken of that data. We're hoping to have a meeting soon so that we can understand that further because so I think from our perspective at the moment the focus is around making sure that how we analyse and assess that data is as worthwhile and as comprehensive as we can possibly make it in order to satisfy any questions that members would have I think trying to pre-empt what others may do with the data it may lead us down routes that we then may find actually aren't answering type of questions that you would wish to have answered part of this exercise. Thank you, thank you Ann. Yes, another question? Could I just commend that a kind of caution around excessive kind of analysis trying to chase a target that we don't know necessarily but perhaps as my final question here this kind of extensive look at data could have some useful lessons for us in the longer term so developing if you will some of our data ecosystem it might be a good opportunity to be starting that and I wonder if officers have taken that into account. Thank you, thank you. Counselor, does the need to hand judge? I think it's had a positive effect on Sikli, am I right in thinking that? Yes indeed the report that we've got after this one looks specifically at Sikli and what we have seen is a reduction compared to last year including in the waste service but obviously in the in the winter month you always get a slight increase in in sickness but it's lower than it was the previous year in waste so it's so far it's looking very positive. Thank you. Thank you. Members any more questions? Chairman I'm going to refer to paragraph 82 and subsection C on page 22 and it's with regards to the longer four-day we practice in places if you'll open a couple of lines. Chairman as many of us may be aware in 1965 before many of us were born I'm sorry I looked at Councillor Williams then but before many of us were born 70 mile an hour was suggested for the British motorways and once that was done we couldn't really go back and they see this paragraph here on paragraph C and it says how difficult it will be should we go back to a four-day week and it gives two things that could happen have we gone past that point of no return where going back to a five-day week would be virtually impossible for the council? Thank you. Now I don't believe that we have one of the things that we've been very clear with all of the all of the staff is that this is a trial and that we cannot pre-empt the decision of members and we've been very clear about that not only to our own staff but when we're recruiting as well we're making sure that we're being very clear about that so now I don't think we've reached that position yet the other thing, we haven't changed anybody's terms and conditions of employment so that the opens are still in place to make sure that if members decide that this isn't appropriate for us based upon all of the information that's put before them then we will be able to revert back it is, as is recognised in the report, the longer it goes on it is an increasing risk but we're keeping people informed as to why we're having to continue with the trial and I think there's a commitment that as soon as we've got all of the information that allows us to do a meaningful consultation that will undertake that consultation promptly and we'll get to members and allow you to have a vote based upon all of the information available to you so no, we haven't reached that but you are right that it's something that we need to keep an eye on and keep it being very clear in our communication to our colleagues to ensure that they understand that Thank you Members, any more questions or comments? Thank you Thank you, perhaps I could just gather up my remaining sort of questions Foot of page 81 sorry, page 21 paragraph 81 there's just a review of the risks but what I commend is something I haven't seen much before now maybe I just haven't been looking carefully enough but specifically mentioned to an entry in the council's risk register so first time I've seen this and I think it's great I think it does actually help position the risk properly in the kind of the corporate mindset one thing it's really a comment in relation to Professor Birchell's work was and one thing we haven't done I think in our discussions of around the four day week we've often been focused on the immediate circumstances and actually there's a lot of stuff still going on in the wider world and I just wanted to mention I don't think we've discussed this committee before but the report published by autonomy which is a think tank to which Professor Birchell and his group contributed and just one thing from the many conclusions that they reached was across a whole series of four day week trials in the commercial sector 60% of employees found an increased ability to combine paid work with care responsibilities and that's something we've talked about quite a lot in the past and I think we have some of us will have that recollection maybe it's still the case some of us trying to balance care of little children and doing your full time work I think this just highlights one of the benefits but it's coming from outside and it's kind of corroboration of some of the things that we're seeing internally now if I could just refer my last point to page 29 and the wellbeing survey and just a comment perhaps for a comment and a question it looks as though that the benefits to individuals through the four day week trial have actually held up right across the length of service so if you look across the length of service so even the old stages are reporting benefits now they are slightly different depending on the length of service but I thought this was an intriguing kind of outcome that everybody was almost equally touched but what does stand out is that the group possibly that are still under pressure and it may this may be kind of inherent is the part time individuals and I wonder if this just highlights the particular care that we need to take part time staff and so to my question are we right about the length of service kind of robustness of the four day week and secondly is there anything we should be doing extra to help part time staff in the process thank you thank you for those questions Jeff very good questions yes we're due to have the next welfare survey starting in the second week April and it's going to be really interesting to see what's happened since the last welfare survey whether all of the benefits have been maintained the anecdotal evidence that we're getting is that they have but it's going to be really interesting to see whether that's been maintained and as you say whether there are different groups that are benefitting in different ways and what those benefits are so it would be interesting to see what results there and I think the plan is to bring that information to members as part of a report in July as far as the part time workers are concerned yes very much we've spent a lot of time talking to part time workers and looking at how we can be more flexible to ensure that they get the same benefits as everybody else so we've made a number of changes one of them for example to allow rather than to have one day off every week or a part day off every week to have a day off every fort night so they can get the full benefit of the reduced hours we've made a number of other changes and we're continuing to talk to them about that and again what we're hoping to see in the next welfare surveys that that's had a positive effect on part time staff but if not we do keep that dialogue open we meet with the unions regularly and when we talk about the four day week that's one of the things that we too discuss I hasten to add what they're saying is that part time workers have definitely seen the benefit of the four day week but they want to ensure that they're getting the same improvement in benefit as full time workers are so that's a discussion that's continuously ongoing and I was interested to hear about your reference some of the other surveys that are going on at the moment I was reading one by Ernst and Young for example who are known for their radical way of thinking talking about how particularly AI is going to mean that actually four day week is likely to become within a decade the standard way of working as people start taking advantage of AI but there's a number of other surveys that we keep on top of which talks about what's happened with part time workers in other four day week experiments both in this country and abroad so we're keeping on top of that and as new information comes out we talk to the unions about that and implement changes if we think it's going to be beneficial Thank you, thank you and thank you for those questions I'm disappointed to make comments of those people with caring responsibilities caring for the older generation as well with families as well and then if you link that with those people often a working part time too it's really important that we explore as many ways possible to make sure we're treating people equally so thank you Any more questions? Thank you chair I have two questions the first is on page 22 and it comes back to the point that council Stobart made that we've I think as a result perhaps as a result of this committee's suggestion this trial has been put on the risk register and this is a kind of long term consideration we know don't we that this has been a a trail breaking trial and we're very happy to be part of it and let's hope we don't know what the government is going to suggest or how the consultation will go but it seems to have been very successful and very productive and has brought down our costs on agency staff so far so we'll see how that happens but I'm just wondered given that just in the news recently I've heard that a number of companies are considering working to the four day week if I just wondered whether in our minds we can keep in mind that it's not just the four day week it's how we're working with staff that is giving us a competitive edge that's enabling us to fill these hard to fill posts and that if other companies all start to offer four day week we need to bear that in mind as well so that we can continue to offer that competitive edge which is not just related to the four day week and my second question is related so people might want to respond to it these two together the second one is how much if any of the significant improvements that we can see in the data about how people are feeling about their health and well being under the trial how much of that is attributable to working four days instead of five and how much of that is related to a better working relationship with their employer because as an employer we have had to and our staff have done a huge big effort on planning and working with staff to engage with them and to value their input and to value their time and so just this morning while I was eating my breakfast I heard on the radio linked with this that the biggest significant indicator to people's health and well being particularly their mental health other than that with their family is their relationship with their manager and so if what this four day week trial process planning has done is to improve the relationships of our colleagues with their managers you know please can we hang on to that as we go forward just in case other companies will bring forward four day week as well I don't think anyone wants to comment Chairman with your permission I can't just say are you referring to what is known as the whole form effect? Not knowing me I'm sure somebody I'm not aware of the whole I was thinking of Tannenbaum and Smith satisfies and dissatisfied and basically yes you're exactly right one of the things that people are most satisfied with is being trusted and valued by their employers and it is an interesting link because you're right some of the benefits that we're seeing are most certainly the physical effects of working four days rather than five and some of it will be how people are feeling valued by the fact that they're trusted and supported by the council it's a fact I mean it's quite old research now I studied it when I was in college which is a frighteningly long time ago but it's still valid it's very interesting what makes people satisfied with the work that they do and people that are satisfied and feel valued are much less likely to look to leave their employer I think there's somebody paying nearby they'll stay with the place where they feel valued so yes I think the four day week certainly contributes to that as well but you're also right some of the other things that we've done around hybrid working where we're trusting people to work from home and make a judgement about where they can be most effective I think all of that gives people the message here that they're valued and I think we've seen that as we'll come to you later on in sort of turnover so you're right when we were first locked down we'd already been working towards council anywhere we were already making sure that our staff could work from anywhere with laptops when we had locked down our chief executive took the decision to enable people to work from home and I remember it being in a meeting when it was noted that somebody was apparently sitting on the floor leaning against their sofa with their laptop on their lap and she said please make sure if that's where you're comfortable fine but please make sure take home any furniture you need if you've got space a desk make sure and I remember staff taking home equipment so that they could work from home and that whole culture of trusting staff to be able to work under their own authority but properly and diligently at home not being overlooked by staff and trusting them I think it caused an absolute sea change in how our staff felt about working here so all credit to that whole changing culture and let's hope we can continue with that thank you thank you councillor Mark Ham thank you chairman chairman I'm referring to on page 45 on paragraph 3 with regards to the survey which was carried out for the share weight service in December 2023 we only received 35 responses for what is basically the largest department in the council I think that's disappointing I do however acknowledge the receipts on the table below it which was referred to earlier on but I do think that maybe that should be putting the context of 35 responses thank you you're right that it's certainly disappointing we would love to have more than that but historically actually that's a really good return for waste the challenge we always have with them of course is because of the nature of their work catching them at the right timing to spend some time completing a survey is not always straightforward but because I've got the same concerns as you we've been talking with GMB Union about how we can make sure that people are encouraged to complete the survey that's coming up in April more thoroughly and the GMB have agreed to play an active role in persuading people to complete that survey but we are hopeful that we're going to get a much better response weight in waste going forward but as I say historically that's a much better response but the survey before we got 17 responses from waste so it's sort of 100% so it's a step in the right direction but now I agree with you we want as wide a survey sample as possible can I ask a related question to answer it on a mobile phone yes they've got a choice of a paper survey although they can scan the QR code and answer it on their mobile phone thank you, do you want to turn that question it's more of a request more than anything else when actually this comes now to us finally whenever that may be can I also ask for the financial implications of what we've done for the cost us with regard to the surveys, the studies as well to be including on all the papers as well, I'm not asking for it now because I'm not expecting to know it off the top of your head I'm asking that for the future if that can also be scrutinised as well just to point out that these staff surveys were something that we did anyway so there's no additional costs from the surveys I'll talk to colleagues I mean have you been recording for example time spending project groups and I'm sure that could be made available I think it's been announced by the leader at a previous council and I'm sure we can make that available in the report going forward thank you oh yes, councillor Richard Stoball thank you so I'm just going to refer to the point that councillor Bradnan was making and I'll also refer to the point that councillor John Williams made during council was really about can we separate out in our understanding of how the four day week is working the contribution made by better work organisation and the contribution made by better equipped people and I wonder if that's something that could be put to Professor Bertul in the analysis process but this is not engineering and we're not dealing with it but it's not we're not dealing with inanimate objects these are people and understanding of the data is great but I think there's all those anecdotes and qualitative data which needs to also weigh heavily in the analysis so I don't think we'll ever find this directly just by crunching the numbers but listening to the stories the sentiments of people who've been involved so I think maybe somebody could confirm that but I know there's some sharing of good practice on insight which I think is great one day we'll tell some stories about what people have done and build it into some kind of narrative around this maybe not just yet but I would just like to emphasise that the qualitative we shouldn't lose I'm sure Professor Bertul is going to bring that kind of emphasis to the analysis process Thank you and I think as members you've probably had officers speaking to us and I've certainly heard some very amazing stories of how this trial has affected people's lives so can I just ask and we will have some of that information as well thank you and that brings to mind it's funny I hadn't really thought about it before but I used to work in research ethics and there were some amazing studies studies where people were going to the doctor with say a mole and they were being treated but then they were being invited to attend would they like to take part in a study that sort of thing and in that we had some wonderful statisticians who understood there is the number crunching element but there is the qualitative which is the number crunching and the qualitative and there are some very clever ways of capturing written explanations of how things have changed and I'd like to check that we are actually capturing that qualitative data which is it's terribly complicated you have to analyse what people have written and see how many times they refer to feeling happier or it's really complicated so is anything being done on that qualitative data as well thank you I confess I am no expert in the areas we've just been delving into but if I can ask members to let me raise those and to take those as comments back and request to see what we can include and how we'll go about that what I would just add as well a couple of weeks over January and February we did what we call red team sessions where we were talking with colleagues about some of the changes that might occur if cabinet is so minded to agree these recommendations and we were asking them about the 4 day week and their experiences of it just to say as part of that some of the stories that came out were really quite powerful particularly some of the stories that relate to caring responsibilities now I don't have any agreement to share those stories at the moment and so obviously I want today but one of the things we would like to do is have further conversations with colleagues to see how we may be able to share those experiences and those stories in a future report to give more of an understanding perhaps and a link to the findings so far of the health and wellbeing surveys which explains a little bit more about why people are finding 4 day week so beneficial in terms of their work life balance and some of the other demands that they have as part of their daily lives Thank you I've got a vision of a 4 day week word cloud 5 words that you've associated with the 4 day week very simple form Members, any more comments any questions before we move on so what we're being asked to do is to recommend this report to cabinet for approval and can I take that recommendation by affirmation so we've got we're abstaining or against against I wish our hands the recommendation thank you so the recommendations carries thank you very much, thank you members okay let's move on we're now on to item number 6 on our agenda which is the people recruitment retention and absence data and I think Helen, you're going to present this report thank you thank you chair so in front of you you have the HR statistics 4 quarter 3 so recruitment retention and absence data so we have amended the report in the first section to include some additional recruitment figures which were requested at the last meeting so we've included a breakdown of the roles advertised and that's broken down externally and internally with the average number of applications for the external roles and whilst there are fluctuations this does give us an indication that the trend is that we have started to receive more applications for our roles over the last period there is one slight amendment to the report at point 14 it says about 11 apprenticeship roles which were unfilled this should actually say unfilled within the first round of recruitment all those roles have been filled now except for one obviously we continue to be invested in our apprenticeships and sometimes with apprenticeships the timings of the recruitment can be affected by academic years and what people are already involved with we've done some work with career fairs and we are also looking at a procurement framework to broaden our access to apprenticeship providers as you can see we continue to seek feedback from both people starting with employment with us and leaving employment with us to continue to address any practices or concerns that people have raised the turnover as you can see also has trended in a decline over the last quarter and the final part of the report refers to sickness absence data which I know we've already touched on and as Jeff said you can see a small increase from last quarter but that would be expected due to seasonal fluctuations obviously there's more things around in the winter months but it is still showing a reduction in both shared waste and excluding shared waste on last year that's taken questions thank you Helen a member's questions councillor Mark Howe first of all with regards to the sorry I'll just recruitment activity and the number of applications per external role and it goes back to 2021 I'm really really pleased to see that we've got no more than 10 applications for those roles I was always told that if you've got more than 10 you haven't write the job description tight enough and so that's very very good I think that should be something we should acknowledge there we had a small blip in May 2023 but we'll carry on with that there is a question I want to ask as well with regards to the new starters I see that we had 23 new starters there's a paragraph 16 by the way 13 new starters 13 completed the induction survey we weren't allowed outside the room until we completed the induction surveys or any other survey for that matter I'm just wondering what happened to the other 10 that's a very general question and I think I have one more question but I'll let if you can just answer them first please thank you thank you for your comment and your question so yes thank you we don't make it mandatory but maybe that's something that we could do but it is separate to our induction so we do get colleagues to all come to an induction it's quite a new revamped induction that is now back in person in the office with a number of different representatives so it's maybe something that we can look at getting them completed but it does depend on the timings some people obviously will go to the induction that might fall in their first week and they might not have very much of an insight whereas some people will have a better insight after a few months and we'll talk to the team about chasing up Chairman very very quickly paragraph 24 I see there we had six voluntary leaders and I don't want to go harp on about one person only but somebody left dissatisfaction around operational issues without getting into all the details which might identify anybody or any department do you think that was our problem or was that more their problem yeah obviously I can't disclose any personal information but it was something that was addressed by the department and the people team Any more questions? Councillor William Jackson success for you now is that better? oh yeah we can hear thank you sorry about that sorry thank you for the report I think it's great news to see that we've actually got a larger number of applications I hope that's a great result of some of the activity around the four day week my question was more around time to fill and time to hire because I can't see that in the report I don't know if that's something we're actually monitoring or actually something we've seen an increase in i.e. the actual time to fill specifically Helen so we've obviously got a lot of data and it's potentially something that we could look at but obviously time to fill probably gives a better indicator whereas time to hire is obviously can depend greatly on people's notice period and therefore sometimes people we can fulfil the recruitment schedule but obviously you know they still don't start with us for a number of months so certainly something we can look into thank you Councillor Anna Brennan thank you and I suppose the other side of the coin of the point that Councillor Howell was making is that whilst you were talking about people who were leaving voluntarily and there was one person who said the organisational arrangements didn't suit them but paragraph 16 on page 65 we've got the data about the induction and out of the 14 respondents 10 of them said that the four day week had impacted their decision to apply for the role so actually that means that you know we have been attracting staff to recruitment which is seems a very positive thing and in general you know when you just look at the graphs above you know the the conditions that prevailed around the 2021 data are just significantly much greener, much better and so I think this is as I say I think it's not just probably the four day week I think it's how we've been engaging with our staff as well and again I urge our leadership team to continue with that very positive approach and culture thank you thank you I just want to make a comment there because I think it links so it links back to our previous discussions about well-being and people feeling valued and just comment on the language being used now when we talk about the people team and people partners and the importance of seeing people as people because language does matter and labels matter so thank you for that Councillor Richard Stover thank you chair so I'm referring to a table which starts on page 62 continues on page 63 and the the chart chart number 2 which is illustrated under item 9 I think the request to us as a committee was there any other data that we think should be collected or presented and I couldn't give a clear answer to that I think the presentation in the table is useful and helps comparison and any clear presentation I think is helpful and it has actually guided some of the questions that members have been posing if I could just pause on chart 2 in paragraph 9 there's a rising trend I think you'd glance at that and you'd say there's a rising trend and a number of applications per external role is definitely going up but there are some outliers and what would be really helpful is to understand why those outliers are appearing is this an exceptional kind of recruitment situation or are there other factors and in fact those two things do overlap are there other factors in play which we should be taking into account so we're trying to look at something kind of sideways slice whether there is actually more of a landscape associated with this and I think we probably need to be careful about trying to base trends and patterns on very limited amounts of data and that the narrative the kind of things that that Jeff and Helen have been talking about that the narrative is sometimes more helpful than a plot but that chart 2 on the paragraph 9 is intriguing but it's a that there's more behind it that it would be great to look into and see and I think to the benefit of the recruitment process so some of the kind of extraneous factors might be seasonality availability of people some of the deficiencies might be down to the fact that maybe we're not reaching out far enough in our recruitment process so I couldn't be prescriptive that's only just a quick glance but I'd appreciate a comment on that Thank you, thank you, Jeff Absolutely one of the things that we're finding as we use our new HR compute system more is access to this data that's having some of the more contextual information around recruitment is something that we're really interested in Helen and I have a workshop next Tuesday to start looking at what and further information we can get in liaison with the services to put that into context because as you say it could be impacted by a lack of general skills I mean everybody knows for example that they're at the chronic shortage of planners so if in one particular month we're only recruiting for planners then the number of applicants might fall but it could be for a number of other reasons so we will be looking in more detail at that contextual data and we'll be hoping to bring a report back I can't promise for the next employment staff in committee because there's a lot of work that needs to be gone into that to make sure that we've got accurate and properly analysed information but it's something that we're really keen on because I think one of the themes that have come out of this is the fact that at the moment the four-day week is attracting a lot of people but councillor Braden is exactly right other people are following this trial with a great deal of interest and if we were to go ahead it's likely that other people will follow eventually and we've got to find a way to keep getting the brightest and best people to come to South Cambridgeshire so it's something we're really interested in and we've got to respond to councillor how apologise to councillor how because earlier on I didn't recognise the reference to Hawthorne effect I had a quick look and actually I'm very aware of the phenomenon I just didn't recognise the name so my apologies councillor how but yes you're right one of the reasons that after the three month trial we then had a year long trial what the Hawthorne effect is for those people that aren't aware is there's been some fascinating studies around this but one of the things that we find there is that that acting differently tells off over time so the longer that the analysis goes on the less impact that observation has so by moving to from a three month trial to a further year long trial any impact to the Hawthorne effect will be mitigated so that's one of the reasons that we moved on so my apologies for not recognising it straight away councillor how thank you that's something I won't have to look up when I get home now so I'm very appreciative of that thank you it's my for how much we're all observed when we're in the chamber as well but thank you members any more comments or questions on the report thank you thank you for the discussion thank you everyone so we move on members what we're being asked to do with this agenda item is to note the report can I take that if I have a measure of agreement that we're noting the report thank you very much for noting for the narrative I think it's going to be really interesting when we're looking further ahead so thank you so members I just wanted to make and I do apologise I didn't pick up on the previous discussion the invitation for Professor Brendan a virtual to first have a discussion I think so if that could be noted as well thank you for following that up thank you thank you for the reminder it was again just picking up the recommendation that we've also asked some of that data on the more wordy data rather than the numbers so thank you for that okay members so this brings our meeting to a close the next meeting of the employment staff committee is on Thursday the 30th of May and thank you everyone for your time today thank you